


Chidi's Follow Up Choice

by youngerdrgrey



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: 30 x 31 Writing Challenge, F/M, Post-1x10, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 04:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9303758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngerdrgrey/pseuds/youngerdrgrey
Summary: Chidi thinks aloud sometimes, which wouldn't be such a problem if Eleanor didn't eavesdrop./prompt:"how long have you been standing there?"





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day eight of the 30 x 31 writing challenge, even though I'm finishing and posting three days in one because I took a break for a bit. It's all good. There's a new episode tonight and last week's needed a follow up before I could watch the new one.

 

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Chidi paces from one side of the couch in his apartment to the other. Then back again. Then another time. Then a fourth time, but he circles the whole of the couch so that he can at least feel like there's some sort of forward motion here. The whole point of the pacing is to get his mind working and keep himself moving so that he's forced into making a decision, or forced to evaluate what exactly a decision could entail at this moment in time. See, the thing is, he spent the whole of the last twenty-four hours debating between his actual soulmate, his fake soulmate, and then another third option, which is his fake soulmate's fake best friend.

Maybe real best friend? Eleanor doesn't seem the type to have actually made lasting friendships prior to ending up in the Good Place. So, Tahani must be her actual best friend. Okay. Starting over.

He spent the whole of the last twenty-four hours debating his actual soulmate, his fake soulmate, and then another third option, his fake soulmate's actual best friend. Only to have his fake soulmate tell him that she didn't mean her love admission, and then the best friend said the same thing, which leaves him with his real soulmate and a bit of... confusion? Disappointment? It shouldn't be disappointing to not have to make a decision like this. He should feel relieved, utterly and completely because now he has everything narrowed back down again. He'd even gone to Michael to have everything narrowed down. This is a God send. Or a Michael send. Shawn send?

This is great. And everything is great because now he knows that he is meant to be with Eleanor Shellstrop, the philanthropist, rather than Eleanor Shellstrop, the recovering narcissist. 

It's just that he might've had enough time with narcissist Eleanor that her love of herself might have inadvertently rubbed off on him. Hypothetically speaking. Hypothetically, he might be accustomed to living with someone who accepts that the dishes are done magically (by him) and really mostly sees this afterlife as another place to muck around in. Hypothetically, he might appreciate having someone who needs him, and that need might be construed into a sort of affection. He also hypothetically might have to evaluate what it means if the only reason he cares about Eleanor is because he's helping her.

But that can't be it. Because he cared about Eleanor the moment that he found out that this was soulmate. This gorgeous, loud-mouthed blonde woman who tried over and over again to curse, even when she knew she couldn't. She didn't accept limitations. She plowed straight for them. And fell, most of the time, but sometimes she got through and made a difference.

But it's also completely unethical to have a relationship with Eleanor. He's her mentor. He's responsible for her life and future in the Good Place, so that imbalance of power makes it impossible for her to truly make decisions regarding him. He could turn her in on a bad day, or after a fight, and her whole life would be ruined because she didn't want to do the dishes herself for once. It's not fair, so a relationship would have to be wrong.

But would a relationship truly be wrong now that everyone knows the truth? Michael now holds the power and is the utmost authority, so Chidi can do anything he wants now. He could--

"Stop talking aloud?"

Oh, God. Those words, they completely shake him. Slap him. Leave him frozen mid-step with one leg bent and his mouth agape because he hadn't said those words, but apparently he'd said other ones. Apparently, he'd -- shirt.

Chidi forces his mouth closed and his posture back to perfect. He swivels about face to see Eleanor, the narcissist, standing in his doorway.

Chidi still has to blink a few times before he can form words. The whole litany of thoughts inside of him seems to have vanished. "I was talking aloud?"

Eleanor does that weird half smile of hers, where her lips thin out but her cheeks still rise up some. She looks kind of like a turtle in thought. Not that turtles necessarily have thoughts. Though, they should. Most creatures have thoughts. But.... Eleanor, that's the focus, and she does her turtle smile before nodding.

"You talked over the door opening. Which is weird. I'd think your door would have warning bells on it or something."

"Warning bells are too disruptive. If I were reading, it'd be terrifying." It would shatter whatever world he'd been in, then again quiet intruders also shatter everything.

"So someone walking in without making a sound isn't terrifying?"

"You make a good point," he says, and she gives a real smile then. It's, well, he wouldn't call it blinding, but it does make the room a little warmer and, really, why exactly isn't she still interested in him? "I just -- how long have you been standing there?"

"Hypothetically?" She strolls into the apartment, eyes glossing over the walls.

Hypothetically -- that was around the time of his ethical dilemma when it came to Eleanor v Eleanor. "Goodie." Weird word. "Good." Kind of a lie. "Alright. So, you heard some things."

She nods. "You think it's unethical to be my soul mate and my mentor. It's cool, Chidi. I told you, I probably got my wires crossed. I'm totally incapable of true love."

"That's... sad, Eleanor. And I'm pretty sure it's also a lie. You gave yourself up for me. And it wasn't even like I was going to die or anything, though it did certainly feel like it."

She tries shrugging it off. "I hear that's what good friends do for each other."

"It could also be what soulmates do." He needs to stop thinking aloud. But, really, soulmates should theoretically be the people who care about a person the most. So, a soulmate would risk everything for the chance of bettering life for their other half. A soulmate would give their other half a new purpose, maybe, if a purpose is something that one soulmate needed to feel useful. Say, if said soulmate had spent the entirety of his time -- their time -- on Earth, pondering about ethics, and suddenly had the opportunity to live through some very intense ethical dilemmas in a place where consequences typically aren't as extreme. Say, a place where a person could die and would reboot with cacti rather than being gone forever. Well, Janet's not a person, but his point stands.

"Yeah, nope, that's not gonna fly, buddy." Eleanor heads for him, crossing the room until they are face to face. "If we were soulmates, we would've been long past the pork the dork stage."

"What's long past--"

"Lots of fun stuff. I don't exactly what kind of fun you and philanthropist Eleanor will get in to, but Janet probably can help you figure out whatever you need for your little fantasies."

He shakes his head. "I don't have fantasies." That's not what he meant. "I just mean that I am not actively seeking any sort of specific fantasies, aside from figuring out what we're supposed to do now."

She does the turtle smile again. "We go back to how we were. Two friends, living it up in the Good Place. One shouldn't be there, but that's why she has her other -- not half because half is loaded terminology here -- her other friend. To help her. We're practically a sitcom."

He hates sitcoms. "Eleanor, I want to figure this out. I don't want to just wave it away and pretend like it's not a legitimate question. We _could_  be soulmates."

"We could also be two people who were never meant to meet. I mean, come on, you speak French. I think snails are weird."

"Snails have nothing to do with--"

"And," she talks over him because of course she does, "when I do think of snails, I think of the one from _Spongebob._  Who meows. Which is--"

"Gary," he says it because he knows it, and she just stares at him. "The snail's name is Gary. Isn't it?"

She keeps staring. "I-It-yeah." And her stare drifts from his eyes to take in the rest of him and then settles on his lips before shooting back to meet his eyes. Her eyebrows skyrocket. "Okay! So, you've seen _Spongebob_ , which should not make you more attractive to me."

"That makes me more attractive?" How exactly does Eleanor gauge attraction? Because it kind of seems like she's just here for anything that makes her happy, like she's attracted solely to these good feelings and everything else is too much for her to handle. Like figuring things out for example, or the potential of falling in love, or even the fact that he can like intense ethical debates and long-running children's shows that often boil down to pretty simplified ethical and moral debates.

"No." She shakes her head. "I just wanted to come over here and tell you that it's cool that we're not soulmates because then we can keep it chill. We can go about our lives, and you can go be happy. You don't have to worry so much about me because I'm not tied to your happiness."

"But what if you were?" He asks the question a little faster than he's thinking it. "Imagine for a second that you were tied to my happiness, soulmate or not, and then tell me that I shouldn't care about what happens to you. Tell me that I should let this go and not try as hard as I can to figure out how to save you. Tell me that it's fine for me to try and bond with Fake Eleanor instead of--"

"Wait, what?"

He says it too. "Wait, what?" Pauses and rewinds his sentences, but his train of thought got away from him there, a bit. "What?"

"You called her Fake Eleanor." She steps even closer to him, and there's this hunger in her eyes and does she know that she licks her lips before she does this ridiculously sexy little smirk. "Not me. You called her, the new Eleanor, the fake one."

"I didn't mean that," he says.

But she doesn't seem to buy it. Her eyes hood over, and he can feel the heat coming off of her body. Feel the breath she takes in the rise of her chest, and her fingers brush against his arm without him recognizing her moving. "You didn't?"

He might've. He definitely might've. He knows this Eleanor in front of him. And he cares about this Eleanor in front of him. And when Michael first said soulmate, he imprinted on this Eleanor in front of him, so for all intents and purposes, she's the real one.

He laughs a little. Meets her gaze with his, head on and shining eyes, and he says, "I did. I meant it. At least to me, you're the real Eleanor."

Her cheeks puff up like she might cry, but the good kind of cry. "God, that's good to hear."

"You're real." His hands come up to her hips. He might've been aiming for her waist, or her hands, but her hips come natural, and she softens at his touch. Sinks into her shoulders and pitches her forehead forward onto his. "You're real. You're real, and I can't know for sure, but I think I lov--"

She kisses him instead of letting him finish. But it's not like those words are going anywhere. And neither is she. Not if he can help it.

/

/


End file.
